1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to computer network security systems, and more particularly to providing a system, method and computer program product for providing flexible and automatic responses to instances of computer system misuse.
2. Related Art
Given the current explosion in the use of and reliance on computers and computer networks (especially the global Internet), computer security is becoming a major concern of corporations, organizations, individuals and other computer users. Today, for example, many organizations are reliant on computers and computer networks to link remote offices, share data and other resources among employees within an office, communicate with customers via electronic mail, reach new customers via electronic commerce, and to provide information by operating World Wide Web pages that are accessible via the Internet. This reliance on computer networks has a downside in that sensitive data now resides on computer network servers which, left unprotected, can potentially cost an organization millions of dollars if misused.
Computer misuse generally involves the unauthorized access of an organization's computers (or resources connected to the communication network) from outside "hackers," or can involve employees inside the organization accessing information or other resources without authorization. That is, an instance of computer misuse can take the form of an outside intrusion or an inside unauthorized access. Moreover, misuse can not only take the form of unauthorized access of an organization's computers (and thus data) but also the destruction (i.e., deletion) of data. Such destruction of vital data (e.g., customer databases) can also be costly to an organization. In essence, a misuse is any activity that would be deemed unacceptable if it were known to the party responsible for the security of the particular computer network in question.
With the problem of computer misuse rising, a new computer security industry has developed and blossomed over the past several years. Products such as virus detectors, firewalls, and virtual private networks (VPNs) have come into existence. Furthermore, there exist several authentication, network management, digital certificate, and intrusion detection software on the market all aimed at computer security.
Of note, however, are the several forms of intrusion detection products now available. Intrusion detection involves monitoring a computing environment, looking for unauthorized users or those authorized users who are misbehaving (e.g., a disgruntled employee deleting sensitive data). Generally, these systems incorporate state table, anomaly detection and/or expert system techniques to detect patterns (commonly referred to as "signatures" or "footprints") of misuse. A signature is simply a set of events (states of a computer) and a set of instructions that transition between events that define a misuse. For example, a user who unsuccessfully attempts to login three times, and then achieves a successful login, may define the signature (a collection of events and transitions) of an outside hacker attempting to invade an organization's network.
The various intrusion detection products typically make use of a misuse engine software module that is the "heart" of the detection system and behaves like a security camera for the network. An exemplary misuse engine, as part of an intrusion detection system, is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,557,742 issued to Smaha et al., which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
One shortcoming of today's intrusion detection systems is that once an intrusion (i.e., a signature) is detected, the response is usually "hard coded." That is, the response to a particular misuse is usually determined and defined when the engine is installed in a particular computing environment. Thus, once the misuse engine detects a problem, the response is always fixed. The conventional responses to detected misuses have been to contact a system administrator via electronic mail, telephone or pager, or simply log the detected misuse into a log file for later analysis. These systems are inflexible and do not provide for a true real-time response to a misuse of an organization's computer network. They also do not attempt to counter or fix the problems arising from the detected misuse. Further, they do not provide a flexible upgrade path to take advantage of new technologies, or to adopt to evolving needs of the computer user.
Therefore, given the above-described limitations, what is needed are a system and method for automatic response to computer system misuse. Further, what is needed is a system, method and computer program product that allow new automated response modules to be installed after the initial deployment of the intrusion detection system. In other words, what is needed is a flexible, true real-time reaction to a detected misuse rather than or in addition to an alarm (i.e., a simple notification).